The Guru - Native Sun

For four guys aged seventeen to eighteen to produce a band like The Guru, it's hard not to wonder if they are accomplishing too much too soon. I mean, guys, really? Aren't we all supposed to start a band like Old Skull in our parents' basements first? Eddie Golden III, drummer and lead vocalist for The Guru, completely skipped over this prerequisite. Golden put together some very interesting solo recordings, Grave Jams and Life of a Pirate, which are both eerie, dreamy and demented lo-fi classics that, it seems, are merely Golden's dalliances.

So, Golden's madcap solo recordings are one thing, but then to come along and front a band from behind the kit - that is some next level shit. Best of all, his voice is similar to, but in many ways better than, Isaac Brock's. I guess it's safe to go further and say that The Guru are in a general way a little like major-label Modest Mouse, but The Guru have a clearer, happier creative pool to pull from, that hopefully they won't someday evaporate with Brock-like drug-fueled antics.

Kyle McEvoy and Colin Sullivan are frenetic guitar players, plucking around the fretboard in that lilting post-hardcore style that seems to be all the rage with proficient young rock guitarists these days, e.g., Fugue, Duchampion. Dan George locks his bass right in with the band, and without the showy bullshit talented novice bassists often succumb to. I think all these guys probably started jamming before they learned to talk. The evidence that they focused too much on music from the get go is that they all go barefoot, and look suspiciously like Huckleberry Finn, especially Kyle McEvoy in his jean cutoffs. Take a break from playing and learn how to tie a pair of sneakers for Christ's sake.

The Guru's full length Native Sun is out on Sex Cave Records in five days (June 11), eight tightly efficient summer songs, with chanty choruses, crisp guitars, and ass kicking energy. The record was produced by the band and live tracked in a cottage in the middle of the woods in Middlebury, CT. It's an impressive record, and a must-own for for anyone into their sound.

Check the band out at their CD release show Saturday, June 11, 2011, at The Space in Hamden. Also playing that night are, Fugue, High Pop, Pachangacha, Black Churches, Slam Donahue, and a Lovers and Thieves reunion. Tickets are $12 bucks.